Arun Jaitley, who was the finance minister in 2016 when Mallya left India, denied the liquor baron's claim.

Singhvi said the Congress had repeatedly asserted for the past over 18 months that not only Vijay Mallya, but also Nirav Modi, Choksi and many others have been allowed to leave the country with impunity.

At a press conference minutes later, Rahul Gandhi said one of its leaders had witnessed Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya having a discussion in parliament just two days before the fugitive tycoon's flight to the UK.

However, reacting to this, Jaitley said Jaitley said he had never given Mallya any appointment to meet him since 2014 and "the question of his having met me does not arise".

The hearing began with television screens in the courtroom switched on to show a video submitted by India of conditions at Mumbai's Arthur Road jail, where Mallya is to be held if extradited.

"I did not even receive the papers he was holding in his hand", Jaitley said.

Recalling the occasion when Mallya "misused" his position as an MP, Jaitley wrote that the fraud accused had paced up to catch up with him when the FM was walking out of the House to go to his room. "The statement is factually false inasmuch as it does not reflect truth", he said in a Facebook post.

"This is a totally unnecessary controversy created by friends in the media".

Mallya, 62, is fighting numerous lawsuits in the United Kingdom and back home over fraud and money-laundering allegations as well as an extradition to India.

The Indian government says Kingfisher took out a series of loans from Indian banks, in particular the state-owned IDBI, with the aim of palming off huge losses which Mallya knew the failing airline was going to sustain.

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